


If Nightmares shall come True

by Aerosol



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Someone Help Will Graham, Wendigo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 06:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2377721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerosol/pseuds/Aerosol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will has a nightmare. But when he falls, Hannibal is always there to catch him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Nightmares shall come True

**Author's Note:**

> Only one thing : Scroll down till the end.
> 
> Now enjoy reading ;3

He's still a little one. Not ten, not twenty, not five, but six years old.  
  
He's kneeling, with knees the weight of toothpicks and his hands, his tiny, chubby hands dig into a dank, moldy bed of dead leaves and marsh. The scent of pine-needles and rotting brush fills his nose and suddenly he realizes he's in a forest. Somewhere between trees, sunlight and no civilization whatsoever. Wilderness. _Do or die. What do you want to be, Willi-Boy; predator or prey?,_ a voice in his head whispers, and he doesn't know whose voice it is but one day he'll realize it's his adult alter ego. A part of him that will show itself later on in his life and will corrupt his dreams, his life, his whole existence. That he will call **monster**. The monster under his skin. The monster he'll learn to love and hate all the same because it's part of him and sometimes even has something useful to say.  
  
But today this voice sounds just how it will sound in 20 years. Cold, evil and spiteful. A mean voice. And even meaner to a child.  
  
Will slowly pushes himself up, feels how the soil under his feet sinks in under his weight. The marsh makes squishy noises, much like his stomach while digesting. Greedy, pressuring, crushing noises. Cold sweat drips down his bare back warning him. A soft breeze rips his thin khaki shirt apart. He feels the urge to scream but even if he tried his vocal cords wouldn't emit a single sound. He knows this forest. He's been here before and he's aware of what happened here. What his father did here. What he saw.  
  
And he saw red. So much red...  
  
At this very moment a shot rings through the air to his right and alerted birds flee their nests. He turns his head so rapidly his neck makes an angry sound but he doesn't care. His heart is beating way too fast in his tiny chest and the blood freezes in his veins. Fear takes hold of him like a fever and bites his white delicate skin with its sharp teeth.  
 _No_  he whispers and hears the sobs in his voice. _No, I don't want to see that. Not again..._  
  
But it's useless. An invisible force pushes him and makes him move. Towards the shot. Towards the red.  
  
He blindly stumbles through thorn bushes and grass, through dead wood and mushroom colonies and logs that,more and more resemble emaciated corpses with each step he takes. He runs and runs and runs and he could have closed his eyes, he'd find it blindfolded, the route taking him to his unloved destination. It's like it was carved into his bones, at least that's what it feels like. But he keeps his eyes open, wide open and doesn't blink. Why? For he doesn't know what pictures will show when his eye lids lay in darkness and he trembles because of his own shadows. And he doesn't **want** to know either. He just wants to wake up, WAKE UP from this nightmare, but what if it's not a dream? What if this is reality? Or has he gone crazy? Beyond all sanity? He often heard that about him. Like the annoying buzzing of the flies that drink his tears and circle his head. The last few days there was no buzzing, though – but a humming much like a bee's, living in its' beehive. A dangerous sound since bees have stings and they sting. They will die if they do but they sting. They hurt.  
  
He reaches a Clearing, seeming to him like a stage of a dramatic tragedy. It's even, full of fragrant green grass and couldn't tell of grosser beauty. The uncontrollably twitching deer in the middle is the centerpiece of this macabre exhibition lacking both name and purpose. He gulps. His breath itches in his throat. A hoarse laugh demands his attention.  
  
Will comes closer (he doesn't want to but has to). His father stands next to the deer. Black hair, just like his, chin plastered with stubble, dark brown eyes, pale skin but not ill looking. He closely resembles him but the eyes, the blue topazes in his eye sockets, those are his mother's, who he never met but misses anyway. He has a rifle shouldered. The barrel still emits smoke from when the shot was fired. Will silently stops beside him, gazing at the bloody mess of fur, flesh and crushed bones. The dying deer's whimper whistles through its perforated lungs. A hind leg protrudes from its body in an odd angle, seems to be broken. This animal, called the _“King of the forest”_ in a fairytale, is in agonizing pain. Will's vision blurs the longer he watches and knows he can't do anything. There is no rescue and how could he save the deer, he's not God. Just a six year-old whose father is a passionate hunter.  
There are times when he hates him for it. And often, way too often, he finds himself wishing he would lay there in the grass instead of that majestic creature, bathe in his own blood and bowels. But those wishes are bad and if daddy knew how bad little Will's thoughts are he'd be very angry.  
  
Basically he's a good man. A nice man. A clumsy man. The example of an ordinary man trying to raise his son alone and teaching him manners.  
But in this very moment, in this dream (nightmare) daddy isn't nice to Will. He isn't nice to anyone which is why he grabs his rifle and shoots the deer a second time, right in front of his son just because the ragged whistling noises of its breathing annoy him. Will screams when the sound of the shot rings in his ears and he screams because the deer screams, loud and deep in his head.  
Then it's suddenly quiet. Very quiet. The deer doesn't whimper anymore, doesn't move anymore. The deer is...  
  
 _He is dead!_ Will shouts. _He is dead! You KILLED him! You're a MURDERER!_  
  
And that's everything he can think about. He doesn't feel anything. Nothing but the crushing knowledge of death laying at his feet, soon to decay to carrion. His father watches him with a look that couldn't possibly be harder. Like a rock. Will can see the disgust in his eyes, thinks he can read _Crybaby. Coward. Pathetic._ in his brown iris. He knows that look and there is no moment when he doesn't want to die of shame when his father looks at him like this. The look tells Will he's worthless. Exchangeable. And a disgrace, a burden. He's small but he's still able to use his empathy to know how his father feels about him. And it hurts, it hurts so much but time heals all wounds. At least until they are ripped open again. By cold fingers and a warm voice.  
  
 _“Will? Will, wake up. Everything is okay.”_  
  
A whisper of the wind Will thinks, shaking his head. _Enough. It's not real. Just an illusion of my illusion._ He's wrong but he doesn't know it yet.  
Suddenly the barrel of a rifle is pointed at his forehead and his eyes widen in horror.  
  
 _Daddy?_  he ask quietly, disbelieving and sad. Daddy grins at him.

 

A third shot rings through the forest and alerted birds flee their nests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
The next second Will wonders why he's not dead and why he was even born.  
  
He blinks, confused, looks around. The forest, the trees, the birds, everything is still there. But his father is gone. And his rifle is in his hands. Stunned Will looks at it, his fingertips caressing the cold metal. It takes a little while for him to realize he now turned into the hunter.  
  
The deer no longer lays at his feet but the Wendigo is laying there instead. Dead. Silent. Exsanguinous.  
  
With Hannibal Lecters accusing expression on his stiff face. The world shatters into a million shards.  
  
 _Oh God._ Will whimpers _I killed Hannibal._  

His whole body starts to tremble as horror grabs him with its claws and wrings his limbs.

_No. No. N-_

 

* * *

  
“-O!”  
  
Will snaps awake with a cry, the taste of blood and doubt on his tongue. Panic-stricken, his eyes focus on the ceiling, the furniture of a room that isn't his but knows nonetheless and learned to accept earlier. It doesn't have windows or a clock letting him know the time. Disoriented and confused, he digs your fingers into the soft mattress.  
Will is not small anymore. He's not ten, not twenty, not five, but over twenty years, maybe even thirty years old. His skin is wet with sweat, his blood rapidly rushes through his veins and his heartbeat, his heartbeat is just a miserable cacophony. Endless fear circles his thoughts and he wants to whine but he's too weak. Too tired. Grown up.  
  
A movement to his right. A hand being gently placed on your naked chest.  
  
“Will?”

A whisper. The voice from his dream. Will turns his head and stares into the slightly worried face of his psychiatrist.

“William, is everything okay? You had a nightmare.”

Hannibal Lecter almost doesn't seem sleepy. His eyes are serious and flawless as ever. Will could drown in them and he'd really like to. A fact that should worry him but he keeps on forgetting about it.  
  
He gulps. It's harder to keep the tears in now but he does it anyway, forcing himself not to cry. Instead, he leans into Hannibal's arms. Wraps his arms around the broad nape, buries his face in the crook of his neck and inhales this indescribable scent he prefers over any perfume. Will breathes in trembling while Hannibal presses the other man to his own body without saying anything, giving him the warmth, the safety, the stability he'll never have himself.  
  
“Shht.” he mumbles, his lips just barely touching his ear. “I'm here, Will. Everything is okay. I'm here.”  
  
His voice is like a mantra rocking the profiler to sleep. Hannibal's arms hold him, embrace him like a cocoon. His presence, both monstrous and beautiful, intoxicates him. Will slowly stops to shake and, after some time, sleep takes him over again. But this time his lips are pressed to Hannibal's collarbone and Hannibal's on Will's temple.  
  
When Will awakes the following morning the bed is empty apart from him and he's never felt so lonely before. He calls for Hannibal and the answer is a noise from the kitchen sounding like eggs being fried.  
He gets up, hungry, tired and longing, trotting towards the origin of said noise, leaning onto the door frame and absentmindedly watches Hannibal preparing breakfast. His skin looks like onyx through Will's weary eyes and the antlers looming over his head like a dark woven crown doesn't disturb him that much. It just reminds him to take the pills the doctor prescribed to keep the visions at bay.  
  
And while Hannibal asks him to sit down, offering him a warm honest smile, Will wonder if nightmares are doomed to come true one day.

_He really hopes not._

The Wendigo only smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :)
> 
> Hope you liked the story. Any comments about it? I'd appreciate your Feedback <3


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